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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="zarionofarabel" data-source="post: 9881234" data-attributes="member: 7026405">Meh. Overall I like robust skill lists because it often becomes a list of "things a PC can do" which is good, as I have found that games with limited "buttons" often seem to put false limitations on what players decide their PCs can do. I'm also a huge fan of Pendragon's Personality Traits and Burning Wheel's Beliefs as mechanics that inform, reinforce, and at times even force players to portray their PC a certain way or engage in certain actions. In fact, to be pedantic on purpose, I kind of consider Pendragon to be the only actual "role playing GAME" (that I know of) simply because it's the only system that has rules that dictate how a PC is roleplayed.Hate classes, think they are one of the most terrible things in a system, right after levels and HP bloat. They also don't correlate to the kinds of characters that one sees in other media or even the kind of characters most people want to play as far as I can tell. I mean I'm pretty sure D&D 5e has, what, a hundred classes and subclasses? Not to mention the fact that, at least in the Actual Plays and online discussions, 99% of the PCs people talk about are multiclassed, usually 3 or more classes. Put plainly, if you need to have 3 or more classes, and a hundred different class/subclass opinions, classes ain't working out too good IMHO. Depends on the game. I like "point buy" for it's fairness aspect and the ability to allow players to make exactly the PC they want (within system limits). I like "rolled" because it often reflects real life better. If a system has the option to use either/or, I almost always leave it up to the players, and honestly am suprised how often players choose "rolled" even if it means their PCs will vary wildly in capability. I am assuming you mean should PCs be defined differently in different genres. It really depends on the genre and aesthetic the game is going for. I like bespoke systems that have custom "bells and whistles" built specifically for whatever genre and aesthetic the game is trying to emulate. Which means different games built for different things will by default have different ways to define PC capabilities.Greatly. See Pendragon and Burning Wheel vs everything else, and more specifically, something like D&D 5e. I don't think you could ever get the same kind of experience from D&D 5e that you get from Pendragon and BW, the systems are just far too different to ever produce similar results unless one employs a heck of a lot of houserules.My favorite way is "by use" as is done in many BRP/Runequest derivative systems like Pendragon, Delta Green, and Dragonbane. Where the use of a skill is tracked and skills advance through use. To me that is the most realistic way for advancement to happen because of the whole "10,000 hours" thing. Plus it helps avoid the whole phenomenon of a thief that gets better at picking locks and disarming traps by stabbing lots of goblins.Don't thank me, you jerk! Being decent isn't something you're supposed to do on the internet! <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤪" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f92a.png" title="Zany face    :zany_face:" data-shortname=":zany_face:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></blockquote>

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